'Batman and the Signal' Introduces a New Hero to Gotham City

Cully Hamner/DC Entertainment

The new miniseries will see fan-favorite writer Scott Snyder partner with Tony Patrick and artist Cully Hamner.

When it comes to a team-up between the newest hero in Gotham City and the veteran everyone looks up to, DC Entertainment has gone for some impressively appropriate creative casting, pairing All-Star Batman writer Scott Snyder with newcomer Tony Patrick for the upcoming miniseries Batman and the Signal. Heat Vision exclusively reveals the cover for the first issue, above, as well as the official solicitation for the November comic book, which centers on teen hero Duke Thomas (aka Signal).

Patrick, writer of Black Mask Studios' X'ed, got to know Snyder through being a participant in DC's New Talent Development Workshop last year, which Snyder taught. It was actually an exchange during one of the workshop sessions that brought the two together.

"I brought up Duke Thomas [the "Signal" of the series' title] in the course," Patrick tells Heat Vision. "During the course, I said to Scott, 'You have this African-American teen character, what're you going to do with him? What's going to become of him?' And Scott said, 'I'd love to do a series about him in the future, and I'm looking for someone to help me write it!'"

Snyder said that Patrick was an obvious choice to work with him on a Duke Thomas-centric series. "He works with kids in Brooklyn, at a center not unlike the center in the series," Snyder — who co-created Thomas with Batman partner Greg Capullo in 2013's Batman No. 21 — remembers. "He was really passionate about the character."

Patrick himself cited his community work when talking about his decision to volunteer to co-write the series. "I work with students, and what I've realized is, I'm a real advocate for high school kids," he explains. "I realized that I go after what I need when it comes to getting resources from the kids, but as an artist, I never did that to myself until recently. I think it was that class that I said to myself, if you don't raise your hand and say that you're interested in this, you're missing out on a huge opportunity."

(Snyder and Patrick will talk more about DC's New Talent Development Workshop program later Tuesday on Heat Vision.)

The three-issue series, which sees Thomas emerge from the events of Dark Days: The Culling as a fully fledged superhero in his own right, will be illustrated by Red co-creator and Blue Beetle and The Question artist Cully Hamner. The official DC Entertainment solicit for the first issue, to be released Nov. 8, is below.

BATMAN AND THE SIGNAL #1
Written by Scott Snyder and Tony Patrick • Art and cover by Cully Hamner • Variant cover by Declan Shalvey
Batman may own the night, but with new villains emerging during the day he needs an ally to defend the city when he can’t. Only one teen is up to the challenge, Duke Thomas. After months of training, he’s ready to step out of the shadow of the bat to become his own kind of hero. Meet Gotham City’s newest protector: The Signal! Spinning out of adventures in ALL-STAR BATMAN and WE ARE ROBIN, comics superstar Scott Snyder and newcomer Tony Patrick take our young hero to new heights in this exciting miniseries with artwork by Cully Hamner.